Time to Think
by imawinter59
Summary: Reylo smut/erotica. After Luke's light saber explodes in the throne room, Rey takes Ben (Kylo Ren) to a planet far away where she can think... Starts just after Rey and Kylo Ren's confrontation with Snoke in Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Mature content in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Time to Think

She saw the world through a blur of lashes, so the reflection of the recessed lights on the polished floor almost seemed like moonlight on the ocean; but there was no movement. The air didn't smell of salt and gentle decay. It smelled of iron, smoke. A metallic taste rose in the back of her throat. Suddenly, she remembered her fight with Luke, her agreement with Chewie-she wasn't on Ahch-To anymore.

Rey opened her eyes slowly, reluctant to leave the comfortable dark. There were piles of ash, nameless substances burning in piles. The red-clad bodies of the Praetorian guards had shifted in the explosion, gruesome trails marking the path they took across the floor. Kylo Ren sat motionless on the other side of the room, his slack body cushioned by three of the fallen. It was almost as if he was sitting on a throne of the dead.

Putting her arms below her shoulders, she pushed herself off the floor. Pain. Her right arm. She had landed on the blade of one of the guards. It was shallow, but the cut went from her elbow to her armpit. She took one of her arm coverings and wrapped it tightly around her bicep. There was a ringing in her ears, but she sensed the silence of the base. There was no life anywhere, except—Kylo Ren was alive. She sensed it.

Her immediate feeling was surprise. She had come to before him. Then, the realization: their force connection continued. It had flared when the light saber had struck true, impaling Snoke, but the rest... they were still connected? She sensed his shallow breathing and the light movement of his pulse without having to approach. Feeling a distant pain in her leg, she looked at his. The bone pierced his skin. Bile rose in her throat. She felt revulsion and pity and she felt glad. Glad? That was-no. It was justified. The immediate threat to her personal safety had ended. Or maybe... was she glad that some sort of retribution had been carried out? For what exactly? Han? She had forgiven Kylo Ren—Ben—already, or understood him a bit more now even if it wasn't her place to forgive. Was she glad because she had bested him, because she had woken up first—was this the thrill of prowess or of power?

She assessed her situation, her options. The light saber was destroyed, but there were any number of weapons on the floor. Perhaps it was right to kill him. But that was how Luke had created him. If something is a danger or a source of pain, we kill it. Why? We do not reform it, do not redeem it. Some maybe we cannot forgive but we would be happy if they were redeemed some place far, far away from us. Killing him didn't seem productive, not ultimately. She felt a special pang seeing his leg. She looked at all of the guards who she had cut down, killed… they all wore masks. She approached the one nearest to her. She reached down to the bottom of the mask but stopped short.

An instinct turned into a feeling which turned into an idea. Rey assessed it for a moment, then approached Ben, grabbed him by his unbroken leg, and pulled. Hard. He slumped off the pile of bodies as she heaved him across the throne room. She didn't want to use the Force for this. She just... His black boot slipped in her hands. Scratches from previous battles were buffed out. She wondered if he polished them himself. He could have gotten new boots made at any time, but instead: glue and polish. They seemed so perfect from a distance, but now, seeing them up close, she saw the quiet sensibility that went into their maintenance.

She retraced the route they had taken up. Before the elevator, she again reached out and found nothing, no evidence of anyone on board. What was happening? Where was the rest of the First Order's fleet? Where was the Resistance fleet? She couldn't think too much on that now. In the hangar, there was just one cargo craft. She placed him in the medical pod. She locked the lid.

She wanted time and a place to think. She needed to take them somewhere far from the Resistance, far from the First Order, to a planet without life. Just such a place, with no inhabitants larger than lichen, appeared before her eyes. She let the force guide her hand as she put in the coordinates. The stars blurred as they jumped into light speed.


	2. Chapter 2

Drills fastened the thin metal sleeve to the unbroken portions of bone. He would be able to wear his normal garb with no one the wiser—maybe just a slight limp—but for now his pant leg was cut above the knee. Large cut-outs in the sleeve allowed for breathability and viewing. Pink, thread-like lines marked where the lacerations had been closed, already well-healed with the help of the medical pod. He would need to bear weight on the leg to encourage bone growth, but not too often.

It would be a long recovery.

She decided to move him while he was still anesthetized. There was no creature or droid to help her. Perhaps that was for the best. She imagined what C-3PO would do in a situation like this. Would it be against his protocol? He wasn't quite steady on his feet, anyways. He wouldn't be of any help. Alone, Rey heaved Ben onto his feet, braced him against her back, and let his legs drag as she carried him. She placed him on a low bunk and looked long and hard at the restraints she had prepared. She left them off. A small table guided out from the wall when she pushed the panel beside the bed. She placed food and water rations on the table. She put antibiotics and painkillers on top of the rations. She rubbed at her neck. Ow... It would... it would surely be fine. What else? She could put the blanket over him, but that require more heavy lifting. He looked a bit silly with his one exposed leg. He was just as sweaty and grimy as she was. Ash and dried blood caked slightly at his temples.

She considered wiping his face with a wet cloth, but she didn't like the implications. She didn't like the implications of her caring for him, but... perhaps... perhaps she liked a few of the implications of his caring for her. If he cared for her. He had offered his hand to her, but she didn't know if this was out of lust for power or just pure… well, lust. Or some mixture of the two. She recognized what she felt on a visceral level. She felt a tension deep in her abdomen when she looked at him, and she knew it to be desire. And there was the intimacy, their mutual knowledge. Their rapport... she felt it had helped her grow. He was capable, and yet she still had much she could offer him. She recognized her attraction, this attraction that was more than lust; she just didn't quite know what to do about it yet. She looked at him in the red glow as she thought. A part of her, distantly, in the back of her mind, noted that this was the color of light most conducive to sleep, that which most preserved one's ability to see in the dark. She looked at his full lips, his strong nose. She found its crook striking, inviting. His scar had healed well. The scar she had given him. She didn't quite know how to feel about it. She returned to his lips. His lips fascinated her. Studying them, imagining them, she rubbed her own with the side of her index finger. She felt a rush behind her ears something like the pleasure of eating bread after a long fast back on Jakku. She liked this, this time to regard him without him regarding her, without him trying to control her or freeze her or probe her thoughts. She felt her power over the situation and over his fate and enjoyed it. The feeling worried her for a moment, but she didn't want to dominate or possess him. She did want to convert him, which was perhaps problematic, but the power she felt in this moment, this power—it was the power any sentient creature with the desire for self-determination craved.

There were really just two options. She could act on her attraction, or could she not act on it. Depending on the circumstances.

She didn't take the restraints away. She left him a message by leaving them where they were, by leaving them unfastened. That and... the idea of tying him up still appealed to her. It just seemed fun and… useful, in a way.

She showered and rebandaged her arm; she fastened her hair into its characteristic three knots; she inspected the ship and performed the passive tasks needed to maintain it; and she rubbed at a sprained muscle in her back between each task. They all gave her something to do with her hands but left her mind as free as she wanted from moment to moment.

She knew strong emotions from unrelated situations had a way of attaching themselves to a person or an object. For her, at least. It had happened before in the desert sands of Jakku. She had heard love stories just as she had heard the legend of Luke Skywalker. She even thought she had seen love in the flesh on one occasion, in the way a hand was held in the marketplace. Sometimes she spent whole months alone in the desert. How desperately she had wanted to be loved, to be special, to be special in someone's narrative. That is what Ben knew she wanted the most. That is what Kylo Ren offered her in the throne room. Who was he then? Did he mean it? An outstretched hand. She was going to have to be careful. She wanted to be the chosen one, yes, but there was a new yearning here, too. These narratives of destiny—they were not what she needed to hear as a child on Jakku. Or maybe they were. Maybe hearing about Luke Skywalker and heroic legends offered her an escape and gave her hope. She was grateful for what they had gotten her through, but now she craved something else: after the miserable insecurity of childhood and the tenuous glory of the Resistance, she wanted—or wanted to want—a quiet, contented life.

"Let the past die," Ben had said.

Luke, too, wanted the past to die, in his own way.

It's much harder to live with it.

She yanked the operating chips from all of the flight systems onboard. They stayed safe in a pouch at her hip as she stepped outside. A place to think.

He could find her when he was awake.


End file.
